TO STUDY HAEMATOLOGICAL RESTORATION POTENTIAL OF MENTHA ARVENSIS AND MYRISTICA FRAGRANS AGAINST ARSENIC INDUCED TOXICITY

Sweety Sinha, Birendra Kumar, Arun Kumar, Sunil Kumar and Ranjit Kumar*

ABSTRACT

Arsenic toxicity is a global health problem affecting many millions of people. Since last decade, the wide spread nature of human exposure to arsenic in drinking water has become very apparent in many countries. Very long time exposure to arsenic has been associated with cancer in skin, lungs, urinary bladder, kidney, and liver as well as various non-cancer effects. Various non-cancer effect of arsenic include Keratosis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, pigmentation. Mentha arvensis are commonly known as mint. It is traditionally used medicinal plants for many diseases since ancient times. Myristica fragrans is commonly known as nutmeg, it possess very high antioxidant property. It is also used in treatment of wide variety of disease. Present study is designed to find comparative hepatoprotective effect of Mentha arvensis and Myristica fragrans against arsenic induced toxicity in rats. Arsenic were administered 8 mg/kg body weight for 8 weeks followed by administration of Mentha arvensis 200 mg/kg body weight for 12 weeks and Myristica fragrans 300 mg/kg body weight for 12 weeks. After scheduled treatment blood were collected for analyzing RBC, haemoglobin, WBC and haematocrit value. Arsenic caused marked increase in RBC, haemoglobin, WBC and haematocrit value, while these medicinal plants were effectively restored the haematological parameters in rats. It is evident from study that Mentha arvensis & Myristica fragrans play a very effective and vital role in controlling deleterious effect caused by sodium arsenite by normalizing the haemotological parameters. Myristica fragrans restores haematological parameters more effectively in comparision to Mentha arvensis.

Keywords: SGPT, hepatotoxicity, arsenic, skin lesions, toxicity.